


Harry Potter and the Girl of Gryffindor

by prettyboypotter



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gryffindor, Multi, POV Harry Potter, Post-War, The Golden Trio, The Golden Trio Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:42:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyboypotter/pseuds/prettyboypotter
Summary: The scars of war has opened more wounds than Harry Potter thought possible. As he returns to Hogwarts for his eighth and final year, he learns to love again, and navigate the twists and turns of the world that had wronged him — In this new age of rediscovery and rebirth, the new world finds a way to repay him in a way he never anticipated.Under the surface, hidden away, the Gryffindor family live on. Known as the most powerful wizards alive, they have been in hiding for years. Secrets and whispers surround the mysterious deaths of their last descendants, mainly concerning their rumored baby girl, lost from the public eye forever, reduced to only a rumor.Another adventure awaits Harry, the same as every year. One of romance and ancestry and bravery, one he might be in for more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Ginny Weasley/Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter/Original Female Character(s), Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. where the wind blows

When the lights of the world dimmed and voices hushed, when windows cracked just slightly open, the wind would tell secrets. The problem was that the wind was a bit of a gossip. And sometimes, it tended to give the most useless information a very lonely teenage boy had ever heard.

The boy, with scraggly hair from a row of sleepless nights and startling eyes small under swollen, puffy eye-bags, pressed his ear into his brittle glass windowpane. Nothing moved in the countryside sprawled before him; the surrounding night was overpowering, filling the grass hills and frosting the tips of the grass below. 

His room was rather high into the sky atop an odd-looking building. Deep inside the large and wildly disorganized home, the perpetually tired boy was the only occupant awake. 

His bed was a mess, littered with torn newspaper articles and schoolbooks. An empty birdcage stood lonesomely in the far corner, though it hadn't been occupied in over a year, and so many newspapers lay about the floor that they almost entirely replaced the carpeting. Small, anxious little tears covered every corner of the pages from where the boy's hand had clutched at them, his eyes scouring for any kind of news, waiting for the moment a rock would plummet into his stomach, waiting for some sort of terrible thing that somehow never came. The bed where he lay had long adopted a permanent imprint of his tall outline; the boy had scarcely moved from it unless the need was absolutely dire for months. Despite long legs and arms, the imprint was huddled and small, the mark of a person whose arms rarely left their knees, who couldn't sleep until he had shrunk himself into a ball so tight that his stomach hurt. The imprint, however often the boy tried to smooth it out, was a clear indicator a person who clung to himself like he would another human being. But it was only him in that bed. And though there was an abundance of people in that house, to the boy, it was only him in the entire world.

The time couldn't have been earlier than three o'clock in the morning. His mind, overloaded with thoughts that would definitely concern anyone who heard, strayed everywhere but his bedroom, which he shared with another boy. This other teen's hair was vibrantly ginger even in the darkness, and even when the boy's eyesight was notoriously terrible. 

Pressing his puffy face closer into the window, he racked the hills before him, his eyes as green as the rapidly growing, far too long grass. He did not know what it was that drew him so compellingly to the glass window. Nothing outside of it was new; he looked out of this window every time he slept in this room. 

The misshapen house was not his own, instead belonging to the family of the redheaded teenager sleeping beside him, who had welcomed the boy with open arms ever since he was only twelve years old. Their home, a polar opposite to the jail-like house of his last living relatives, had become his sanctuary over the past six years. The family had adored him ever since he met the sleeping boy on the train, on their way to the only other place the boy called home. Despite being so young, he hadn't been used to love after suffering years of unadulterated hatred from his relatives, yet it surrounded him now. And despite an opposite physical appearance and an absence of shared blood, he had never been more certain of whom he called family.

The boy knew the land around their home like the back of his hand: scars of garden rakes and various pranks gone wrong. He knew every buried rock in the soil, every twist in the road, the scars of the land similar to the ones on his forehead and the back of his long-fingered hand. Still, his eyes searched for something unknown in the fields, aching to be discovered. He elected to ignore the sharp stinging in his ear, as the numbing effects of the whispering, revealing wind frosted the glass where he had placed it. 

He had dealt with enough secrets for a lifetime. He used to treasure those secrets the wind held for him; he used to search for them himself. When the boy reflected on his earlier years, he couldn't figure out why he had ever wanted those secrets revealed so desperately, and wondered how much happier he could have been if they had remained hidden, as secrets usually do, buried under tied tongues and protected promises. Now, the boy was more than willing to let secrets blow past him, traveling past the sprawling countryside and the crowded house to instead travel across the country. 

While the boy's body shivered in the cold, whispers of chillingly cold wind swept the green land. It swirled possessively around the house twice, splitting and then separating as it went. Conjoining to blow past the different bedrooms, it claimed the night, shaking dying and dry leaves off the trees. 

Summer was rapidly coming to a close; the wind had decided to speed up Mother Nature's process, simply because it said so. It swarmed together as it passed the first room, where two girls chatted endlessly into the night, and then the other, where a husband and his wife lay in blissfully undisturbed sleep. The wind somehow grew bored with the large house, which the boy felt was the most wonderful, magical house on Earth. It chose to take its secrets elsewhere. 

Brick buildings and tall, windowed houses were its destinations. The wind cared not about cars and suburbia that waited patiently for its smothering presence. Instead, it swarmed and swirled until it found the city of endless mass; poor and wealthy dwellings both suffered the clutches of insufferable wind. Deep in the city of London, it took control of the night. 

The London air was much smoggier than the countryside where the thought-ridden boy had finally succumbed to drowsy, non-voluntary sleep. The wind chilled the water of the River Thames. It trailed weary men through the noisy doors of rowdy pubs, watched as they downed their worries away in clinking glasses filled to the brim in brandy. The wind would keep that secret for its own. 

One small breeze, curiouser than its brothers, separated from the nosy wind. It clung like a burr to the back of a drunken man, who staggered into the back of an unnoticeable pub. The breeze followed this man as he raised a wobbly hand up to the brick wall ahead of him, watching with the awe of a child as he tapped one specific brick near a stray trash can. The brick sank into one hole, disappearing, which then expanded until there was a hole in the wall large enough for the man to stumble through, and a long cobblestone street was stretched out before the man. 

Unsure and clumsy on his feet, the man stepped through the hole in the wall and hobbled into the street. 

There was no wonder why the curious little breeze was so fascinated. The street was gigantic: shining posters and bright colors filled the windows, where moving pictures could be seen in newspapers. The street was separate from the rest of the world, where the wind had taken a hold of, and it was clear in the flattened stone and fully functional streetlights that this place was newly renovated. Some portions were much newer than others. Some seemed older than a century, while different parts appeared torn in half from fifty years to only a few months old. 

The man staggered down the street, occasionally stopping to peer into the darkened windows. All the stores were closed. He continued down the street with no real purpose other than an innate sense to explore, to keep going until he came across an end, or found a convenient alleyway to collapse into. 

And so he did. As the breeze fought to keep itself connected to the back of his drink-stained dinner coat, the man toppled over into a nearby alleyway. The second he hit the cold floor, he began to snore. 

The breeze, feeling slightly in awe and immensely confused, shook itself free of the man and swirled through the air beseechingly. 

Finally, as if they had planned to meet, it saw a girl huddled against a wall, watching the breeze with a glazed, tired expression on her face. She showed no inclination of surprise, though showed an odd bit of humor at the appearance of the intoxicated man.

The girl was curled up into a tight ball, her elbows wrapping around her mysteriously bruised knees and holding herself so tightly that it appeared she was trying to break herself in half. Books and tiny shreds of paper surrounded her small body, every inch of them marked with loopy, incomprehensible handwriting. 

The books had been stolen in the dead of a night not any different than this one, when the girl succumbed to childish desires and took advantage of the closed shops around her. It had been the second month of hiding in that alley; it was enough to drive anyone to a breaking point. So, a natural sense of adventure draining any uncertainty, she crawled through open windows and doors left ajar to scoop as many materials as she could find. It had been most successful: She had managed to find the books needed to satisfy the slowly moving months and enough water to suffice until she would be forced to venture out again to get more. The girl would have been able to thrive on the amount of water she had found, but since she cared so deeply for the mischievous white cat at her side, her only company these days, she was forced to sneak out and steal more supplies at least once a week. 

Her moral code had dissolved within the first two weeks of hiding out here, but her sense of adventure never had. On the days she felt most like herself, the girl would climb to the rooftops of the surrounding buildings with the cat on her shoulders, just to watch the sunrise and pickpocket the occasional passerby, but only if they deserved it. She considered herself to be a bit of a Robin Hood; she reserved her skills for the worst of people, those who kicked strays cats and shouted at cashiers.

Though she was pitifully small and quite obviously malnourished, there was a clear steeliness in her face. Light, pale eyes reflected the moonlight and pink lips murmured questions to the man. Under clothes so dirty they were practically rags, she was alarmingly frail. It was clear she hadn't had much to eat recently, and even when the man's pockets were filled to the brim with stolen biscuits, she ignored the rumbling in her aching stomach out of concern for the man. He was clearly of a higher class, dressed in a stiff suit with a smart-looking watch, yet she immediately decided he needed the food more than she did.

Daring to inch closer, she asked if he was okay, but he didn't answer. In response, he drooled on the cold cobblestone, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like a dog.

Eyeing the man anxiously, she fingered a necklace on her neck. Compared to the dirty sweater it was layered on, this piece of jewelry was unusually shiny and lustrous. Above her crystallized neck, the girl's eye-bags matched the tired boy's. He was so far from where the girl and the breeze were, yet so fresh in its young memory. The sharp, pale color of the girl's eyes underneath far outweighed the heaviness of her eyelids. 

The breeze was drawn to her. It curled into her hair, making strands dance in front of her eyes, which had slowly adjusted to the sun starting to climb the early horizon. Somewhere in the far off distance, the people of London were beginning to wake, and the girl focused only on the wind, which pulled the front strands of her hair into a haphazardous braid. 

As the girl laughed, the hopeful, happy sound echoed down the narrow, shabby-looking alleyway. 

The drunken man grunted loudly beside her. The smile dropping from her kind face, the girl pulled her ragged blanket closer to her. Her eyes carefully watched the man, she returned to her previous spot. In front of her was an odd sort of fire: green instead of natural red. The fire appeared to burn endlessly and never wavered. It was almost like magic, and the breeze watched it with amazed curiosity. 

The girl was shabby and lost, fingers calloused and hair knotted. Unlike the boy, she was without a home, anyone around her, or anyone to talk to. Her voice had become hoarse from lack of use. She didn't ask questions nor challenge the breeze. She let the small wind ruffle her hair, and cupped it in her tiny hands when it grew tired of filling the holes in her clothes. Most would have panicked after an invisible force had made their hair dance. The girl never did. 

Glancing one last time at the man, reminding herself to wake him in the morning, she curled up into the brick wall as the small breeze settled sleepily in her red sweater. 

The breeze adored the girl; she treated it with such kindness when she had nothing to give. It wouldn't plague her with secrets. It worried she might not have been able to bear them. So instead, the wind absorbed hers. Though she couldn't see the curious little breeze stealing her heaviest secrets away, she felt her body become infinitely lighter in the absence of them.

After letting one last strand of her hair flick up into the night air, the breeze wrapped up the last of her secrets and swirled into the air. It took the worst of her secrets far, far away, purely out of the love for her. Maybe, if it could find her again, the wind would come back once her secrets were safely hidden. 

Even if the girl was healthy enough to protest, she wouldn't have, and welcomed the satisfaction and freedom of a clean slate. Slowly yet surely, the girl's pale face began to regain its color, and her light eyes won back their innate mischievous spark. Without those plaguing secrets, she was free, and life flooded back into her, filling her with bright colors that she could feel swirling in her fingertips. 

The girl glanced at the man on the floor. He looked old and tired — despite his drunkenness and the gross drooling, she felt a sharp stab of sympathy for the man. Without a second thought, she took her blanket off her cold knees and laid it over him. The cold air washed over her, making her shoulders shake and teeth chatter, but the man's health came before her own. 

The girl lifted her hand towards the fire, and the green sparks roared higher. Looking satisfied, she rummaged in the bag beside her and pulled out a book. The pages were odd and almost disfigured, filled with odd drawings of magical creatures and listing fantastical attributes to them. Her eyes naturally adjusted to the dark, absentmindedly scratching the ears of her fluffy, white cat that had appeared at her side. His shining fur shone like a beacon in the dark alley, illuminated by the green fire.

Her eyes found the moon: her reading light. Looking up into the star-studded night, she wondered if there was anyone out there who was truly, somehow, just like her. 

And the green-eyed boy, awoken by the sound of roaring wind at his window, watched the moon just as peacefully as the girl. Looking across the rolling green hills, he wondered if there was anyone out there truly, somehow, who could see his true self, and every imperfection that came with it.


	2. the world after a war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry, Ron, and Hermione are finished. They’re done with the near-death experiences and the chaos of a war they just barely survived. This summer was perhaps the hardest all three had ever had.
> 
> But it’s time for a new beginning.

Harry Potter was tired.

He was a man barely over the age of a boy. He had seen countless battles and suffered years of heartbreak that would shatter any man's mental state. Harry never allowed himself to stop; he kept plowing ahead. And now that the war was finally over, he was stuck in limbo.

Hermione Granger was scared. 

She refused to show it, declined any help. She was scared. She rose each morning in a cold sweat. More than once, she yelled out for Ron, believing him to be dead, because her nightmares told her so. He was always at the ready with words of comfort, pulling her into his arms and never letting any reluctance show. He had become her rock. 

Hermione was still scared. She poured over books of healing spells, memorized them so well she could recite them in her sleep. She researched how to comfort a person who was coping with grief. Though it was supposed to be for helping Harry, she was using this book as her own therapist. After all she memorized, despite the knowledge and Ron's constant comfort, Hermione was always scared.

Ron Weasley was drowning. 

He was the one who had to make the jokes and keep his friends happy, but he was drowning. Everywhere around him, someone was hurting, and it was his job to help them. His mother constantly burst into tears; His brother, George, was inches away from breaking down everytime Ron saw him; Ginny, his younger sister, was staring at walls as if they held secrets she was trying to read; Harry, his best friend, was distant, his laugh forced and mirthless. Ron was trying to help them all, but he was drowning. 

His girlfriend, Hermione, had terror in her eyes when she looked at him. He made it his duty to protect her. When she would wake up screaming, he would be waiting in another room to swoop in. Sometimes, it was because he needed it too. She had become his rock. He didn't have time to be his own.

Harry was alone.

Not many could say they had no family without thinking of one distant relative, one second cousin, even if they didn't talk to them. Harry Potter had absolutely none. 

When he looked into the mirror where others would see how they inherited their grandfather's nose and their aunt's eye color, Harry only saw what he was told: Lily Potter's eyes, James Potter's hair. Yet there was no way of verifying this. It wasn't like he could see it for himself.

Over and over again, people reminded Harry of who he was: the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the most famous wizard in the world. He was the son of James and Lily Potter, and he should be known as that, instead of their surviving orphan. He wanted to be just an average person who could look into a mirror and see James's shaggy black hair, and not remember Lord Voldemort's deathly green jet of light. 

James, Harry's father, told his wife to run, escape with Harry and flee from Voldemort's reign. James never knew the aftermath; he died believing that both his wife and son lived. 

Harry wished he could catch a glimpse of his startling green eyes in a window pane and not be looking into his dead mother's, who leapt into the line of fire to protect an infant Harry. 

All Harry wanted was to recognize parts of his face in his parents and know if his laugh was his mother's or his father's, whose sense of humor he inherited or whose smile was like his. In spite of the impossibility of it, Harry wished he had known his parents long enough to see them in his reflection. 

He wanted to know who would win arguments in his house, who was the sore loser or the one to apologize first. Who would have taught him how to fix a tie, how to shave, how to talk to girls, or spy on him on his first date? He wanted to know who would give him the best advice when things overwhelmed him, whose arms he would collapse into when he had had a terrible, drawn-out day. 

But Harry had these days so frequently they had become the norm. After all, there would never be another day as devastating as the war, the day he died and sacrificed himself for people who were killed anyway: fifty lost lives in a war built on his back since the day he was born. 

On that day, Harry looked into the serpentine face of a man who ruined him, who slaughtered his parents, his godfather, his friends, and his childhood. Harry killed him. Harry won, but the war was still raging inside him.

He wanted to remember. He wanted to be able to picture a young Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, his father's best friends, and think about their laughs and smiles. He knew they were around him when he was a baby, so why couldn't he remember them? Why couldn't he at the very least picture Sirius's face before he got sent to Azkaban, framed for his parents murder? Why did Harry have to wait thirteen years to meet them, just to lose Sirius after two short years, then Lupin two years later? 

Sirius had passed Grimmauld Place down to Harry, his godson. Now that Harry was eighteen, he should be moving in. But he couldn't. He hadn't bothered to try. After the war, he went straight to the Burrow. When Harry followed Ron and Hermione home, trudging silently in their footsteps like a ghost, they let him. Ron had welcomed him with open arms. No one ever said a word to Harry about it.

In the first few weeks after the war, it felt like he was roommates with a thousand Dementors, sucking the happiness out of him and anyone near him with unforgiving ease. 

And despite the warm dinners and the laughter that filled rooms, the gnomes in the garden and the ghoul in the attic, the Burrow didn't quite feel the same. 

There were significantly less people now: Ron, Ginny, Harry, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley as the only remaining occupants. An empty Burrow was such an anomaly to Harry that it took the whole summer for him to get used to it.

Percy Weasley left shortly after reconciling with his family to move in with Penelope Clearwater, while Bill and Fleur returned to Shell Cottage halfway through the summer. 

George, to his mother's heartbreak, hadn't come home since the Battle of Hogwarts. He wrote a letter to explain his absence, blaming his crowded shop, but everyone knew better. 

When Harry passed Fred and George's bedroom, it was impossible to ignore the emptiness or the fact it would probably remain empty, gathering dust on boxes of Puking Pastilles and NoseBleed Nougats. 

Mrs. Weasley refused to enter the room, claiming to not want to stumble on one of Fred and George's old booby traps, but it was clear she felt otherwise by the way she screamed at her husband when he suggested cleaning out their room. The room would stay untouched and perfectly preserved unless George came back to unpack it himself, though by the tone of his letter, Harry doubted he would. 

Hermione arrived about a week prior on a Muggle airplane after finding her parents in Australia, restoring their memories, and bringing them back home. Picking her up from the airport was the first time Harry left the house in two months. Upon her arrival, Mr. Weasley bombarded her with questions about the airplane. She tried her hardest to answer as many as she could, but she had recently taken to making up ridiculous answers only Harry knew were wrong, hiding his laughter when Mr. Weasley would accept it as the truth. 

Ron and Hermione quickly picked up where they left off; it was known throughout the house that if they saw Hermione, Ron was only a short distance away. Harry couldn't have a conversation with one of them without the other popping in. Though their shared, obvious separation anxiety was slowly starting to digress as the war aged farther behind them, they had become a package deal. 

Though he poked fun at them, Harry was feeling this deep tie to Hermione and Ron, sticking close to them wherever they went, afraid of finding Mrs. Weasley alone and having to face the mother of a man who died for him. 

Hermione was slightly irritated with Harry's third-wheeling at first, but she never said anything about it, and was one of the first to comfort him when he was reminded of all that happened. He was grateful: It was hard to help him when everything was a reminder.

It was sounds that were likeliest to give him the worst memories or panics: Harry once shut himself in his room for two days after hearing a teapot screeching, easily mistaken as a woman's shrill scream, exactly like his mother's in the back of his mind every time he met a Dementor. 

Only three days ago, Ron, in an attempt to lighten the mood and appease his Muggle-loving father, yelled out, "Abracadabra!" as he Apparated onto a hat. At any other point in his life, Harry might have laughed, but it sounded so close to the Killing Curse that he grabbed the nearest person (an unsuspecting Mr. Weasley) and flung him to the ground while screaming for everyone to duck. They had watched him with concerned, appalled faces.

Harry wished with all his might that it wasn't true, after everything she did for him, but Ginny reminded him painfully of the war; Her hair was the same colour as what was matted on the head of Fred's still body. 

Hermione tried to reason with him, reassuring him that he would get over it with time. Maybe he would stop remembering her elder brother's empty eyes when he looked at his girlfriend, but it got to a point where everything about Ginny reminded him of Fred. Harry was ashamed and guilt-ridden to admit it, but he had been avoiding her all summer.

Even thinking about Grimmauld Place gave him panicked, constricted chest pains. The ghost of Albus Dumbledore was still there, so was Sirius's bedroom, where Harry previously found an image of his father and his friends: the Marauders, smiling with their arms around each other so innocently. Every single one was dead now, all because of Harry. 

He was starting to doubt if the aftermath of the war would ever leave him or the Weasley's. Every meal, when arbitrary conversations faded into silence, Harry stared at the empty chair beside him, hoping every time he looked at it, maybe one of these times, Fred Weasley would appear back in that chair, eyes alive with the laughter and mischief he was missed so dearly for. Sometimes Ginny stared too, but she would act like she wasn't. He always saw Mrs. Weasley watching her son's vacant chair. She did it every time they ate together and never bothered to pretend that she wasn't, even when the entire table's eyes were on her.

Now, Harry was standing outside of the Burrow. 

He had his bags packed, headed to Grimmauld Place trying his hardest to ignore the pressing guilt of losing the lives that used to inhabit that house. He was about to leave, his feet wouldn't listen to him. 

"Harry," a soft, quiet voice said in his ear.

He turned, and there was Hermione and Ron. 

They looped their arms through his and he leaned into them; they propped him onto his numbing feet like a pair of crutches. Someone, presumably Ron, grabbed his bag. 

Slowly, together, they walked back to the Burrow.


	3. the letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Harry wakes from the longest streak of dreamless sleep he’s had in years, he jumps into banter and arguments like every other day. He quickly learns, however, that this is very much not any other day — Every great journey has to start somewhere, after all.

Yawning and stretching his arms to the ceiling, Harry Potter was pulled gently, for the first time in a long while, out of his deep sleep. 

Sleeping in the Burrow lessened the chance of plunging into an unwanted nightmare, seeing as Harry always found it easier to sleep when he wasn't being yelled at by the Dursleys. 

Only a year ago, he had been forced to become accustomed to being yanked out of his nightmares every night, screaming and sweating with a trademark searing in the lightning scar on his forehead, so he welcomed the comforting feeling of being drawn out of the peaceful dreams that he rarely experienced before. 

Besides, it was a nice shift from when he initially returned to the Burrow; nightmares and flashbacks kept him up for so long that he went an entire week without sleep, and had only managed to drift off when Hermione dropped a Sleeping Potion into his pumpkin juice. Now he could not stop sleeping, and would remain in his slumber until the sun or surrounding voices woke him up. In dreams, Harry could find an exit. He could always wake up if it was too much, too vivid. There was no escape in real life, only the world that had stripped him of almost everyone he ever loved, mentally and emotionally ruining those unlucky enough to have lived.

Harry sat up in his warm bed and turned to stretch his back, feeling immense satisfaction at the cracking noises that rippled up his spine. He was at peace, as he usually was at the Burrow, and smiled softly to himself as he stood up out of bed. 

His back winced slightly as he descended down the stairs, where he could hear murmured voices below him.

"You're one to talk!" the voice of Ginny Weasley snapped fiercely. "As if you haven't been snogging Hermione any chance you've got —"

"I have not been — oh, shut it!" Ron Wealsey, her brother, sounded rather frustrated.

Harry stepped down the stairs and came to sit upon the top of the staircase, watching the scene below him unfold with a foggy, slightly distant smile. 

Hermione was sitting in a chair, pretending to not hear the heated argument between the two siblings. It was possible that she was not paying attention, for she was enraptured with practicing a complex spell. Tapping her wand on a mug, she filled it with water and emptied it, a noteworthy accomplishment, but neither Weasley noticed. 

Harry felt impressed by it before his attention was swept away by an arguing Ron and Ginny.

"Listen," Ginny's voice lowered to a dangerously harsh growl. "Harry and I already broke up, okay? Just shove off and leave it alone."

Harry winced, remembering their fleeting summer in the tightness of her voice. After the war, everyone was in a state of euphoria. Lord Voldemort was defeated, so, finally, they could see each other freely. 

Harry and Ginny were happy together, but he felt that euphoria very briefly, only for a few months. He always saw how everyone around him, all starting to pair up, mentioned a feeling of "forever" when they talked about love. Harry felt that head over heels infatuation that Ron showed for Hermione, but only for a brief amount of time. He hated how he lost feelings so quick, but there was no denying it. He fell out of love with her as fast as he fell into it, even if she did nothing wrong. 

Ron's loud retort snapped Harry out of his thoughts, "I'm not going to shove off. You're my sister! If he hurt you, or the other way around, then I need to know."

"No you don't! There's no need to go all psycho and use the protective brother excuse," she snarled in response, vibrant ginger hair making her reddened, fuming expression even more foreboding.

"It's my job to protect you —" growled Ron.

"No, it's not!" Ginny's tone was harsher than Ron's. "You're possessive and controlling. You're not my father! You have no right to try and control my love life. Just because you're the only one in your little trio who can't make their own decisions doesn't mean you can make mine for me."

Ron's ears went bright red. 

"I think we all have a right to know why you and Harry split. You know, out of all the boyfriends you've had, he's the only one I've trusted with you!"

"It's not that you trust Harry, it's that you don't trust me! I can handle myself perfectly fine without your stupid, constant meddling."

"Meddling? I'm your _brother_!"

Ginny stomped her foot furiously and Harry felt the need to intervene, but frankly, he felt scared that he would be brutally hexed by an agitated Ginny if he dared to jump in. 

"I don't care! You can take those brother excuses and shove them right up your —"

"Stop it!" Hermione snapped, wrenching her attention away from her wand to shoot Ginny and Ron an equally heated glare. "You're acting like children!" When Ginny opened her mouth to retort, Hermione continued without a pause, " _Both_ of you."

Ron glanced at Hermione, just now realising her presence. His face softened, glancing apologetically at her. "Hermione, I don't want you involved —"

Hermione silenced him with a dangerous glare so powerful that Harry could feel its effects from all the way at the top of the stairs. He shivered, thankful that he was not the recipient of the blazing look. 

When an annoyed, huffy silence fell among the two siblings, Harry decided it was now safe to make his entrance. He descended down the rest of the stairs and jumped over the last step, landing rather heavily on the wood floor beneath him. 

Ron smiled gratefully at his appearance. "Great, Harry's here. Maybe he can tell us why —"

"Drop it!" both Ginny and Hermione snapped, neither looking at him as they glared at separate corners of the room. 

A most uncomfortable silence fell. Ginny's eyes were alight with fire, fixed on an oblivious Ron, who was making apologetic glances at Hermione. She rolled her eyes before waving at Harry, who grimaced back.

Harry rocked on his heels awkwardly, not sure what to do with himself. "So... breakfast?"

Ginny stared at him in disbelief, glancing at the clock on the wall. "It's six o'clock at night...."

"Breakfast food for dinner!" said Ron. "Harry, you are truly the brightest wizard of our age!"

Hermione seemed to take great offense to this and glowered at Ron heavily.

"I said _wizard_ , Hermione, and I'm only joking. We know you're the smartest witch alive. Harry's not called that for a reason," said Ron happily, nudging her reassuringly.

It was Harry's turn to be offended. "Speak for yourself! Remember when you pretended to be unconscious rather than break up with Lavender yourself? That's not the smartest idea I've ever heard."

"That was different." Ron laughed, clearly taking this in a joking way. "Remember Roonil Wazlib?"

"I was under a lot of pressure...." Harry muttered.

  
Everyone started laughing around him. Hermione hid her smile behind the sleeve of her robe. Harry felt insurmountable laughter rising to his chest at the memory. He could distinctly remember when Snape held the Half-Blood Prince's book right in front of him, where Ron's name was misspelled by one of the Weasley twin's spell-correcting quills. Harry had told Snape that "Roonil Wazlib" was his nickname, and actually expected Snape to believe it. 

Ron shoved him playfully. "Seriously, we should get a move on breakfast. I could eat you right now if you weren't so scrawny."

"Thanks Ron," said Harry sarcastically, "but I prefer my breakfast to not be bright orange."

Ginny was not laughing, and continued to glare hotly at Ron. He barely noticed his sisters presence and was now skipping into the kitchen happily, a peaceful-looking Harry walking quietly on his trail. 

Ron clapped his hands as he approached the kitchen stove, where Mrs. Weasley was running around in a frenzy. Her wand was zooming housekeeping spells all around the room. Harry watched in wonder as dishes scrubbed and cleaned themselves with the speed of marathon racers. A copper pot on the stove was filled instantaneously with water, and began to boil just as fast as it had appeared. 

Harry took a moment to appreciate the skilled wandwork as he took a seat at the table beside Ron and Hermione, feeling at peace and comforted by the sounds of clinking plates and various aromas of Mrs. Weasley's cooking. 

Harry and Ron instantly dissolved into a playful argument about Qudditch. Ginny and Hermione, seemingly forgetting about the confrontation, started whispering quietly to each other. 

As the two girls continued, Ron started to drift from his conversation with Harry to stare at Hermione. 

Ron sat and watched her attentively with his head resting on his hand. He had the look of a smitten puppy, a warm look of content spread across his face. His eyes traveled down her bushy hair and back to her eyes, flickering to her smile. If Hermione did anything as simple as tucking her hair behind her ear, Ron would melt on the spot. She did not seem to pay much attention to it. 

Mrs. Weasely, just noticing their presence, trotted over to the table. She swooped down to envelop Harry into a suffocating hug, somewhat awkwardly since he was still sitting in a chair, and she ruffled Ginny's hair before smiling at Ron and Hermione warmly. 

"Hello, dears," she murmured softly as she returned to the bustling stove. 

"Hello," they chorused back. 

The kitchen dissolved into a buzz of white noise. Hermione left to find Crookshanks, leaving Ginny, Ron, and Harry to sit at the kitchen table. 

A sleepy Harry read through the Daily Prophet with narrowed, scrunitive eyes, scanning the pages for his name and smiling to himself when all that appeared was: "Where is the Boy Who Lived? A trusted source spotted Harry Potter hiking across Antarctica. The Daily Prophet believes he is on the hunt for a cure for the lightning scar on his head."

Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour had come to visit the Burrow last night, and after a hurried, ecstatic greeting and suffocating hugs from Mrs. Weasley, the couple resigned to hiding in the kitchen along with the three teenagers. Fleur was lounging at the far end of the table, talking to her husband as he brewed evening tea for his mother and a large pot of decaf coffee for everyone else. 

"They got a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts," Harry announced, reading an article from the paper.

Ginny looked up from the table, where she was carving drawings into the wood. "They did?"

"Yep," said Harry. "Says it right here."

He slid the newspaper over to Ginny, who read it surprisingly fast and passed it to Ron. 

"I thought zere was a curse on ze position," Fleur spoke up from her seat. "Won't ze teacher be 'urt?"

Harry shook his head. "Not anymore. Voldemort cursed the position because Dumbledore wouldn't hire him. The new professor would be fine since Voldemort isn't, you know, alive."

"All thanks to you, mate," said Ron, shaking Harry's shoulder and beaming at him.

Harry decided not to protest this. 

So many people took the opportunity to congratulate Harry on his defeat of Voldemort, clapping him on the shoulder whenever his name was mentioned, that he grew tired of reminding them that Harry was not the one who deserves all the credit. He was thoroughly convinced that without Hermione or Ron, he would have been killed before finding the locket, and Voldemort would still be in power. Harry shuddered at the thought, avoiding everyone's eyes. 

Bill paused, his mug suspended halfway up to his scarred lips. "Who is it?" he asked.

"Doesn't say," responded Harry, running over the article another time to see if he missed a name. 

"Why not?"

"Dunno," said Harry, "probably for their safety. If there's any Voldemort sympathizers out there, they might go after the new professor."

Ginny frowned. "Why go after a professor? Harry was the one who killed Voldemort, wouldn't he be the first target?"

"Thanks, Ginny, for reminding me that people want to kill me. It's not like I've been hunted by the most powerful Dark wizard in history for seventeen —"

There was a frantic hooting noise, and Harry's words were cut off as everyone in the room turned to the window to see an owl slamming into the glass, it's feathers spraying the kitchen from the impact. It stumbled across the windowpane until leaping and collapsing on the table in front of Harry and Ron. 

"Mum, it's Errol!" Ron called, scooting his chair away as if the bird was a bomb.

"They're here!" Hermione squealed gleefully, who just appeared in the kitchen, holding a steaming mug of tea and smiling at Ron, then Harry after what seemed to be an afterthought. 

"What's here?" asked Harry.

"Our Hogwarts letters, of course," Hermione answered. "We've been getting them for eight years, Harry. They're actually late this year..."

Harry laughed, assuming Hermione was making a sarcastic joke. There was no way Hogwarts would send them a letter, there was no such thing as an eighth-year, even if he, Hermione, and Ron had not finished their seventh-year. 

Mrs. Weasley stood behind Harry's shoulder and detached the letter from the now unconscious bird's leg. Harry's laughter ceased when he saw a familiar crest emblazoned on the crisp, neat envelope. 

"That's for Ginny, right?" said Harry, very confused and a little alarmed.

Mrs. Weasley touched the letter, and when her fingers moved the upper fold of the parcel, Harry could see the outline of three other letters behind it; one for every teenager in the room.

"No way," he breathed, eyes wide when he caught sight of his name sprawled out across the envelope.

Hermione travelled across the room in an instant, accidentally resting her mug of piping hot tea on Ron's fingers, who cursed loudly and jerked his hand away from the table. She snatched the parcel away, not noticing Ron's stream of profanity, and read it with an overly enthusiastic fever.

"Here's yours, Ron, and pick your head up off the table. Hermione, dear, pass this to Harry," said Mrs. Weasley as she handed out the letters.

Hermione handed Harry the oddly familiar envelope without looking at him as she tore hers open, obvious excitement sharpening all her movements.

Harry felt a sudden rush of nostalgia, the memories hitting him like a breath of sharp, cold air. 

He was eleven again, watching hundreds of letters shoot out of the boarded-up door and the Dursleys fireplace. He was walking through Diagon Alley with Hagrid, experiencing the Wizarding World for the first time, and praying that it was not all a dream. 

Sometimes Harry still wondered if it was, if he would wake up in that cupboard under the stairs with Aunt Petunia rapping furiously on his door. 

Harry had developed a habit of running his finger over his hand whenever he had these thoughts, tracing and feeling the words _"I must not tell lies"_ etched into his skin. 

It was unnerving how calming this was to him. It reminded him he was human, that he was really in this world of magic and people who cared about him. He felt pain; real, tangible pain, and he was not a small, misunderstood child anymore, treated terribly by his only living family, but with nowhere else to go. 

"Ees 'e alright?" Fleur asked tentatively.

Bill glanced in Harry's direction, who was trailing the words seared in his hand with an ecstatic speed, his mind disconnected from the rest of the room.

"Harry?" said Bill, pulling a chair up and sitting across from Harry, who could not look at him. "You doing alright, mate?"

"I can't do it," Harry said before he could stop himself.

"Sorry?"

Harry took a breath in; It felt like a heavy dumbbell dropping into his chest, pushing his lungs down into his stomach. 

"I can't go back to Hogwarts." He was so quiet that no one except Bill could hear him. They were the only two people in the world, their conversation for their ears only.

"I know it seems like a really hard thing to do, but if you push through it, I think you can —"

"I said I can't do it," snapped Harry, and his fingers trailed the writing on his hand even more furiously. 

Bill paused, watching Harry's hand. "Why not?"

"It's too much," whispered Harry. "I died there. I really, genuinely _died_. Voldemort killed me like he did my parents, Sirius, all of them." His voice got louder, harder. "I saw Voldemort when I was in limbo. He was this little naked baby thing. I was disgusted by it. I'm disgusted with _myself_ , actually."

"Woah, Harry, listen —"

"I'm the reason all those people are dead."

"Mate —"

But Harry was unstoppable. 

"They all died because of me. Voldemort gave me a chance to give myself up and spare their lives. I didn't. I kept going. That's why everyone's dead, because I wanted to live."

"If you gave in, Voldemort would have killed us all!"

"He might not have. You don't know him. I do. He was _part_ of me." Harry looked up at Bill, a steel quality taking over his face. "He would have spared them if they hadn’t defended me."

Common sense finally filtered into his mind, and he mentally blocked himself from saying more. Bill seemed to see this in his eyes, and turned away with a resigned sigh sounding much older than he was.

Harry seized his letter, ripping it open with increasingly hard to manage anxiety. Inside the letter were three documents: a list of electives Harry didn't recognize, a shopping list, and a acceptance letter. He took the largest letter out first, the one with the easily recognizable Hogwarts Crest on it. 

_"Dear Mr. Potter,"_

Just these words alone heightened Harry's nerves, and he glanced anxiously at Mrs. Weasley, who was busy running through everything Ginny needed. Panic was creeping into his chest, settling in his throat and making it very difficult to swallow. 

_"We are pleased to inform you Hogwarts will reaccept any witch or wizard who were students in the past year to earn a degree in Witchcraft and Wizardry. Those who were seventh years will be allowed to return and complete their education. Due to a reduced student body, classes will be split evenly between Houses. Hogwarts will be supplying eighth-year dorms and electives as well as dorms shared with seventh-years if that is preferred. Any requests for dorm-mates must be submitted in two weeks time. Head Boy, Head Girl, and students who were Prefects will keep their title and privileges._

_"It is not required by law, and students may choose not to attend if unable to. However, it is strongly encouraged. Those who decide not to return must inform Hogwarts before the beginning of term to make accommodations._

_"You will find a list of books and items required if you decide to return. Term will begin on September 1st. We hope you consider returning._

_"Sincerely,_   
_Professor Flitwick_   
_Deputy Headmaster."_

Harry looked up to see Hermione staring at him before he coughed awkwardly and looked back down at his letter, panicked but also curious. He flipped through the parcel to find his shopping list.

_BOOKS_

  1. _Conquering the Dark Arts: Updated to Present Day_ by Reginald Chatham _  
_
  2. _The Rise and Fall of Lord Voldemort_ by Aretha Drawby
  3. _A Boy Who Lived: The Unofficial Biography (Now with Exclusive Info!)_ by Rita Skeeter.
  4. _Transfiguration in the Modern Day_ by Eleanor Starport
  5. _The Art of Potions and Poisons_ by Ruth Morris



Harry stared at the third book listing. A Boy Who Lived? Exclusive information? He had not said a word to Rita Skeeter about anything that happened to him in the past year, unless she drugged him or used her Animagus form, but he doubted it.

"A Boy Who Lived?" Ron read from his letter. "Gee, I wonder who that is. Neville Longbottom, maybe?"

"It's by Rita Skeeter," said Hermione with a harsh, edged tone. "If she was following us that whole time as a little bug —"

"She didn't," Harry said irritably.

"Then what new information could there be?"

"There isn't any, it'll be her opinion on common knowledge and my ' _troubled past,'"_ said Harry, dripping with sarcasm.

Hermione fluttered through her pages. "How'd they write a book about Voldemort so fast?"

"Self-Writing Quills," answered Ron, who seized Harry's letter to be sure that it matched his own. "I dunno know how Muggles spend so much time on their books. It's got to be exhausting, right?"

"They have technology, it's not like they use quills and parchment from the Stone Age," retorted Harry while Hermione murmured in agreement.

"It's not our fault that techno-stuff goes haywire near us!" said Ron.

"Then use a pen!" Hermione shouted. 

"A _what_?"

Harry sighed as they launched into a fresh new argument, shifting his attention to Bill and Fleur. She took hold of his hand while he skimmed the Daily Prophet, gazing out the window with a peaceful glimmer in her eyes.

Bill nodded, addressing the group but looking only at Harry. "I'm sure a book about Voldemort will be written by someone in the Order, what's the author's name?"

"Aretha Drawby," Harry read from the list. 

"Oh, she's a great author!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, joining the conversation. "She wrote an excellent novel on Gilderoy Lockhart's memory. The poor man... all those adventures wiped from his mind. You remember, Ron, he was your Professor?"

"Mum, _we_ were the ones who Obliviated him. All those stories were fake! He tried to wipe Harry's memory and —"

"It was a really sweet tribute to Gilderoy," Mrs. Weasley mused, ignoring her son.

Ron stared at her. "Oh, so it's _Gilderoy_ now?"

Mrs. Weasley sighed sadly to herself and turned away, returning to ask Hermione about what was on her shopping list. Harry made up his mind, shoving the letter roughly into his pocket and keeping his eyes averted from everyone else.

Their solitary conversations slowly died out and faded into a group discussion about the following year. Ginny talked about what she needed for her seventh year. Harry, Ron, and Hermione discussed their plans. Ron decided he would go wherever the three of them went, and Hermione, of course, already had it planned.

"Obviously, I'm going back for our last term," said Hermione excitedly, bouncing in her seat with anticipation. "You learn so much in your seventh year. Of course, it's going to be all N.E.W.T. classes, which are so much fun to take..."

Harry stayed quiet, leaning back in his chair casually as Hermione ranted about the promising year ahead of her. When Hermione's lengthy explanation of each individual course faded out, everyone turned to him with expectant faces. 

"Oh — er.” Harry sat up and looked down, avoiding each questioning gaze. "I'm not going back."

Ron nodded, then immediately switched to an outraged look after a moment. Hermione's face fell as Ginny rolled her eyes, muttering to herself about "stupid boys." Mrs. Weasley shook her head, tsking Harry softly as she sliced various vegetables. 

"Why waste six years of your life just to drop out?" asked Mrs. Weasley, though in a tone that was far less of a question and more of a statement. "You're too smart for that, dear."

"I'll be fine," muttered Harry, staring at the table so intensely that Ron glanced over to see what he was looking at.

Hermione looked stricken and heartbroken, as if he did this as a personal attack on her. "But, _Harry_ ," she whispered, "how can you not go back? They said that all seventh years should return...."

Harry looked away, unable to meet Hermione’s saddened eyes. "I can't do it. So much has happened there, so many people died there. Lupin, Dumbledore, _Fred_..."

Mrs. Weasley made an odd choking noise. Her spatula fell out of her hand and clattered onto the kitchen floor. Ginny, speaking softly so only her mother could hear, moved to her side and held her hand, which she accepted gratefully. 

"But Hogwarts is your home!" Hermione seemed almost desperate, her eyes wide and pleading.

"It's different now," Harry whispered truthfully. 

It was never going to be the same for Harry after the war. Though the nightmares were slowing down, he was still plagued with a constant slideshow of faces, replaying in his head over and over like a sick movie. Hundreds of the dead, young and old, their blank faces imprinting into his brain. Some he knew, some he didn't, but they all shared one thing in common. They had died for him. He was the cause of their death, the reason they were stripped away from their families. Mother, fathers, sons, and daughters; all gone to save the Boy Who Lived. 

Mrs. Weasley shook her head wildly, arms crossed. There were clearly tears in her eyes. The teapot behind her was screaming, but she ignored it as she collected her breath. 

"You're going," she declared pointedly, after a moment of silence.

"I can't do it —"

"You can, and you will." She was shaking slightly, and Harry wondered why it upset her so much. "All students need forms to drop out, and you're not getting any permission from me."

Harry stared at her incredulously. "But I'm of age! You're an adult in the Wizarding World once you're seventeen."

 _"Harry James Potter, you are going back to that school!"_ Mrs. Weasley screamed shrilly, her face bright red and eyes misty. 

The other teenagers watched her and Harry with mixtures of shock and mild surprise. Ginny was rubbing calming circles onto her mother's thumb, her face neutral with a curious glint in her gaze; Ron was slowly inching lower into the table, terrified from his mother's sudden outburst of anger; Hermione smiled approvingly at Mrs. Weasley.

Harry gaped at her. "You can't —"

"For the last seven years, I have seen and treated you as if you were my son," started Mrs. Weasley with the faint shine of a tear in her eye. 

Ron muttered, " _Better_ than her real son," earning him a swift kick to the shin from Hermione.

Mrs. Weasley continued, "That day you met Ron on the train, you became one of my own. You will always be a part of this family. That means that when you're under my roof, you play by my rules."

Her stern tone melted and became softer, as if she was on the verge of tears.

"Fred would want you to go back to Hogwarts."

The room went silent. Both Weasley siblings glanced at each other, wordlessly communicating as Harry looked down at his shoes, full of guilt.

"Every year you came here for Christmas, Fred would set the table. He'd put your little place card down next to Ron's, with the words 'Harry Potter; honorary Weasley.'"

She sniffed, blinked away tears and took a shaky breath, her hands fanning herself. 

"Fred said wonderful things about you. You were so good to him. He said y- you were like his little brother...."

Mrs. Weasley's words were cut off, making tiny sniffing noises. With a shared look, Ron stood up from the table to move over to Ginny and Mrs. Weasley. He wrapped his arms around his mother's shoulders, and she patted his hand lovingly. 

"Fred loved you just as much as he loved any of us, Harry." Mrs. Weasley's voice was so quiet, it was almost a whisper. "And he would want you to go back to school. So when I say you're going back to Hogwarts, you're _going_."

Harry was silent, struck by Mrs. Weasley's sudden, heart-breaking recollection. Then, despite his trademark stubborance he felt moments before, he nodded. 

"I'll do it." He looked up at her teary face. "For Fred."

"For Fred," repeated Mrs. Weasley in a choked whisper, reaching out and taking Harry's hand. 

He let her squeeze it gently, silently appreciating the motherly love before, clearing her throat with a great sniff, she returned to her frantic cooking. Her hands were shaking so hard that she could barely hold a wooden spoon, but refused to ask for help. 

He knew they were both thinking the same thing, both seeing Fred's face in their minds. They knew he'd be making jokes right now, likely with George in the corner, but would eagerly jump into the hug they shared. Both of them missed him terribly. Maybe if they closed their eyes, they could imagine Fred was still there in that corner. 

Then Harry stood up to hug Mrs. Wealsey, letting her pull him in tighter as if he was a tall, scrawny stuffed animal. She clutched at his shoulders, and he felt somewhat awkward but also very comforted. 

Harry caught Ginny's eye over Mrs. Weasley's shaking shoulder. She smiled with an admiring look in her brown eyes, the same color as Mrs. Weasley's. Harry made a mental note to talk to Ginny later. 

Ron and Hermione were standing to the side offhandedly; Hermione with tears in her eyes as Harry separated from Ron's teary mother. 

Harry walked slowly up the stairs without an explanation, careful not to move too fast lest they start to question him. He knew they would assume he had gone to pack. They all had to leave for school in two days, Harry now that he was definitely going, and he was a notorious procrastinator. 

Harry threw quills and pieces of strewn about parchment into his suitcase before dramatically crashing onto his bed. Running his hands through his mess of black hair, he felt himself begin to overthink, plagued by self-doubt and worry. 

He had been comforted by the idea of having a year to himself, to think over things, but still found himself harboring that familiar buzz of excitement he always felt before school started. Harry had been experiencing that feeling every summer since he was eleven years old, and never grew tired of it. 

Despite this, dread took just as large of a piece of his brain as excitement did. 

Harry hurt anything and anyone he grew close to, he knew this from past experiences, and in the very back of his mind, he had believed he was protecting Hogwarts by deciding to stay home. 

Every year he had attended school there, something terrible had happened to another student, teacher, or the Wizarding World as a whole. He was a curse, a bad luck charm. The last thing Hogwarts needed was a catastrophe worthy of Harry Potter. 

He laid spread-eagled on his bed, thinking far too much until his head pounded against his skull. He decided he would allow himself to fall asleep. Time was inescapable, after all, and the day of returning to Hogwarts would come whether he slept or not.

Then Harry thought of Ginny, as he'd come to find he often did at this time of night, but never like this. 

Ginny was different. She did nothing wrong, caused Harry no harm (spare an occasional quip or joke at his expense), but everything changed for Harry. 

When he looked at her and that long, treasured mane of vibrantly ginger hair, all he could see was Fred Weasley's, and the sweat, blood, and shrapnel that muted and dirtied their trademark colour. She wore the exact same shade of orange that had been knotted atop his lifeless body, which belonged to a man Harry loved like a brother, laid among a sea of others. 

When Harry was close enough to look into Ginny's eyes, and her into his, he found he was staring into Mrs. Weasley's. Their identical brown color bore into him; the eyes that had reflected the blazing fire and chaotic scene of the Battle of Hogwarts. They were the same ones that always held so much warmth for her family, but had been filled with nothing but the fiercest of red hot anger, glaring into Bellatrix.

Mrs. Weasley had murdered someone that night, and no matter how valiant it was or whether or not it was for the right reasons, she had taken another human beings life for Harry's sake. It was all for Harry's sake. 

And Ginny's freckles, which Harry used to find so endearing before, now resembled the countless amounts of blood that had been spilled for him, condensed into the speckled dots he could count on her face. They now made him queasy to look at for too long, remembering the marks of blood on the tile of Hogwarts floors, smeared from running footsteps and covered by fallen bodies. It hurt to look at her.

Ginny, the girl who defended, fought for, and loved Harry fiercely, had become a physical manifestation of not only the war, but everything he had lost. She was beautiful, hauntingly so, but she was different.

When Harry looked at Ginny, the monster in his chest that used to roar with pride now sulked in the hidden crevices of his ribcage, trying its hardest to forget. But it never could.

He could no longer bear to think about it anymore, so with a huff and a wince of pain in his back, Harry sank into his pillow and drifted, finally, into sleep.


End file.
